Watercolor paper

Arches Paper is simply the best watercolor paper I have ever used. Perhaps there's one I haven't tried yet that's better, but I haven't found it yet. My favorite is the hot press kind, just because it's so smooth and easy to blend on. Rick was amazed the other day when he was looking closely at one of my projects; there were some tiny unpainted spots in the middle of areas of color, and he wondered how I achieved that effect.

"Umm, well, I just didn't paint that spot."

He queried why it didn't just bleed over into everything. Well, good watercolor paper just doesn't do that. Paint stays where you put it, within the bounds of the wet area you've created. If an area is dry, it stays dry. You can even puddle-up the water on a spot, and the surface tension of the water will keep it in that spot. It makes for some very interesting effects that you don't even see until the spot dries. I'll paint an area at night and then the next morning I'll look at it and it will look quite different. I think that's what I like best about watercolor painting -- it's chaotic and unpredictable, like me.

As for the Arches paper, the 300-pound weight paper is the best. I can completely "lift" color right back out of a spot that I accidentally painted. You can't do that with cheap, flimsy paper.

Whatever flaws the French may have, they do know how to make watercolor paper.